


How to Recruit a Gangster to your Volleyball Club in 4 Hospital Trips or Less

by setosdarkness



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fukurodani Gakuen, Headcanons for Team Owl: The Fic, M/M, akaashi moonlights as izaya orihara, and the birth of their beautiful friendship, bros 4 lyf bokuto and kuroo, delinquent!Akaashi gives me so much life, dorky senpai Bokuto thirsting for A-KA-AAASHII, kurokens because why the hell not, sports club recruitments are SRS BSNS, stalker-not-really-yes-really!Bokuto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 02:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6220246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/setosdarkness/pseuds/setosdarkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s almost like an urban legend: fascinating, scaring and mystifying the people who know of him. Even Bokuto is surprised when he first heard of him: the beautiful, polite, honor student being the same infamous delinquent who sells exam answers and gets gangs to fight on his behalf. </p>
<p>Bokuto *wants* him.</p>
<p>Or, how Bokuto Koutarou recruits Akaashi Keiji to join the Fukurodani Gakuen Volleyball Club.</p>
<p>Or, how Bokuto Koutarou became a one of the top five national-level aces (too bad he isn't top 3).<br/>Or, how injuries are nothing in the face of true love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Recruit a Gangster to your Volleyball Club in 4 Hospital Trips or Less

He’s almost like an urban legend: only spoken of in hushed words and hurried whispers in-between gulps of breath during tests of courage, or maybe in-between gossips about a certain disappointing classmate who has gone ahead and got herself disposed of by some cruel salaryman, or maybe in-between flicks of cigarettes by some broad-shouldered, narrow-minded seniors cornering some pushover to be their gopher.

Unlike figures in those urban legends, he’s not particularly hard to spot if you know what you’re looking for. There’s no tease of the supernatural - unless you count his breathtaking looks, his impeccable grades and polite mannerisms while he’s confined in the cage known as a classroom, his incredible charisma and manipulative abilities to be able to do the things that he does.

Bokuto Koutarou knows what he’s looking for.

Fukurodani Academy is an escalator school, with uniform similar for all of its students beginning from primary school all the way until university. It plays to Bokuto’s advantage, because nobody bats an eye at him for being a first-year high school student hanging around in the building reserved for middle school students.

“Bokuto-senpai, hello!”

“Hello!!! How are you???”

Bokuto returns the greeting easily, clapping Shinya-kun on his back. He’s fairly popular with his kouhai - it’s not just because he’s friendly and outgoing, but he concedes that it’s probably not because of his volleyball prowess. Despite being granted the chance to play in prefectural games more often than not, he’s still far from being the top-notch regular that he wants to be.

He makes conversation for a few minutes, before rubbing at the back of his head, making some explanation or the other about needing to go.

Bokuto knows what he’s looking for, but he’s having the tiniest bit of difficulty.

“Hey, hey, Shinya-kun. I gotta ask, do you know where’s Akaashi Keiji’s hangin’ out right now?”

Shinya-kun has always been pale - Bokuto remembers the other being teased because of his very easy way of transforming into a lobster-worthy impression whenever he stays under the sun for fifteen minutes or more - but the way his kouhai gulps and stutters and downright _pales_ in a decidedly sickly manner is alarming.

“A-A-Akaashi-sama? Oh no, Bokuto-senpai, did you do something to offend him?”

It’s beyond interesting how this Akaashi Keiji is able to inspire such respect and terror. Even Shinya-kun, who’s the same year as him, calls him ‘-sama’.

He’s almost like an urban legend: fascinating, scaring and mystifying the people who know of him. Even Bokuto is surprised when he first heard of him: the beautiful, polite, honor student being the same infamous delinquent who sells exam answers and gets gangs to fight on his behalf. Even more than Bokuto is surprised, he _wants_ that guy.

“Not really??? I mean, I want to recruit him to join our team, but-”

“Bokuto-senpai, he’s going to kill you.” Shinya-kun says flatly, dropping his voice to a mere whisper. Bokuto indulges the other and crouches a little, leaning in close. “The soccer team tried to recruit him two months ago and they’re all hospitalized. Still are.”

…The soccer team?

Hey, isn’t that one of the biggest athletic clubs of their school?

And come to think of it…

“Hey, isn’t that where Matsunaga is?”

“ _Yes_. Even the demon Matsunaga-san was not able to escape unscathed.”

Huh.

Now, he’s even more interested.

Matsunaga is kind of famous for being a delinquent amongst the third-year high schoolers after all. He’s supposed to be this one guy unbeatable in anything - or wait, there was that gossip about him being undefeated by anyone in anything, except for that one time he lost against that brutish monster from Miyagi in arm-wrestling. But he’s pretty impressive - even the teachers and local police are afraid of him.

“Now, I want to meet him even more!”

Pale Shinya-kun’s eyes are teary but resigned.

“Bokuto-senpai, we’ll definitely mourn you.”

 

**•••**

 

So here’s how Bokuto finally finds the person he’s been looking for during the past two days – his self-study and homeroom time spent skulking about middle school classrooms and shadowed places in-between school buildings – rather ironically, in an alleyway less than a block away from the local library. The weather has been on the cool side recently, but given how Bokuto’s been kind of running around different places, he doesn’t bother wearing a jacket or a cardigan to shield himself from the chill.

He shivers, nevertheless, because the sight that greets him is more than just the comfortable level of coolness.

Akaashi Keiji is as mysterious and beautiful as the rumors say – though there’s something definitely off with the way he’s calmly perched upon a makeshift throne of cardboard boxes, gaze zeroed in on the phone in his hands, furiously tapping away even as chaos erupts just shy of his dangling feet.

Bokuto figures that he’s kind of lucky to stumble upon Akaashi Keiji in action, doing what he does best: organizing gang fights and letting destruction happen on its own after one gentle push.

There are some garbled words from both sides, but any attempts at communication are best handled by swipes of baseball bats stolen from gym rooms and Bokuto is very sorry for the baseball club of whatever school these delinquents have raided. Most of the scuffle’s participants are too broad-shouldered for an ordinary high-schooler and he considers himself _very_ lucky that these fighters’ attention is focused on causing injury to their enemy gang.

The fight doesn’t get stretched out, adrenalin and lack of common sense sapping strength away quickly. There’s nobody left standing – mostly everyone’s left in a dirty pile of bleeding gums and broken noses, sprawled all over the alleyway and miraculously not attracting any sort of neighborhood police.

…Well.

There’s nobody left standing aside from Bokuto himself – who’s still gaping at the unfolded scene in front of him – as well as Akaashi, who’s still busy tapping at his phone.

A few minutes pass by, the sudden gust of wind prompting the fallen delinquents to groan and moan about their injuries, wriggling like overgrown worms against the ground.

Bokuto sneezes.

That’s when Akaashi finally deigns to look up from his phone, eyes darkened by the angle, the last dredges of the setting sun’s rays causing more shadows to befall his figure.

Bokuto quickly wipes his face using his palms, hoping against hope that there’s no snot whatsoever.

Stay cool, he tells himself. He’s gonna be amazing at recruiting this creature in front of him.

“Hey hey hey! Why were you playing Piano Tiles while those gangs were fighting???”

…Wait, no.

That wasn’t supposed to be his first words!

Akaashi Keiji’s back straightens, cold glare going even cooler.

There’s a quirk of an eyebrow though, gone quickly.

“It’s Piano Tiles 2.”

Akaashi’s voice is _perfect_ : just the right amount of stoicism and dry wit. He can just imagine the other deadpanning at his jokes, shutting him down completely. He can just imagine how _good_ , no, _fantastic_ even, it will feel if he can divert that kind of man with that kind of voice into going along with his ideas.

“Aw, man, I can never get that right!” Bokuto grins his absolutely charming grin, flashing his teeth. He’s been told by his mother that he’s irresistible whenever he does smile that way and his mother _never lies_. “So, do you think we can be friends?”

Even on a Saturday, Bokuto has opted to wear his school uniform, even with the weird glances. At least this way, he knows that Akaashi will at least recognize him as someone from the same school, never mind that he’s supposed to be an upperclassman.

“No, thank you.”

Akaashi jumps down from his biodegradable throne, landing smoothly just a couple of centimeters shy of a fallen gangster’s neck. His phone is immediately pocketed; his hands are primly, properly by his sides. It’s almost like a normal interaction between two students, if one ignores the lumps of bodies scattered about. Almost.

“But whyyyyyyy.”

There’s that nearly-imperceptible twitch on the other’s eyebrow, almost as though Akaashi is amused by his antics. Or that Akaashi is very displeased with the ongoing conversation—which is _impossible_ , because he’s still grinning and therefore, irresistibly charming.

“You should know the answer to that.”

“But I want to play volleyball with you!”

“No, thank you.”

Damn! He was sort-of hoping that the abrupt topic change will catch the other offguard into an agreement.

Akaashi still looks faintly unimpressed, as though he’s used to hearing out-of-the-blue requests.

“Are you scared of sports? Or is it of teamwork?”

The shounen manga that he’s reading has taught him that one absolutely foolproof way to trick someone into doing what you want is to taunt them into submission.

“You shouldn’t be,” Bokuto says as kindly as he can, still grinning even though Akaashi is a few meters away and is just watching him with that intense gaze, “because you’re so used to not fighting on your own, aren’t you?”

It probably only takes a split-second and that’s exactly how it feels.

Before Bokuto even registers anything else, he feels a blow to his stomach, to the back of his knees, to the back of his neck. By the time he even blinks, he’s already made himself comfortable beside the lump of exhausted and beaten delinquents, gazing _up_ at the unfathomable middle-school student’s darkened eyes.

Akaashi doesn’t look angry.

In fact, Akaashi doesn’t look like he feels anything more intense than some bland form of mild irritation.

Bokuto wants him so much – wants this enigma to be beside him all the time. He just has this very strong _feeling_ that they’ll achieve great things together.

“You’re probably just lost, aren’t you?” Bokuto murmurs, unheeding of Akaashi’s shoes mere inches away from kicking him in the face. “Hey, if you’re just looking for something to focus on… why not just focus on me?”

 

**•••**

 

Saturday evening: Bokuto’s mother receives a call from the hospital advising her that her son has been admitted due to numerous injuries.

*** **end trip 01** ***


End file.
